


don’t tell us our youth is running out (it’s only just begun)

by TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel



Category: The Wicked + The Divine
Genre: F/F, goes AU after issue 4, let's pretend issue 5 doesn't exist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-02-23 23:04:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2559041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel/pseuds/TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They’re sitting in a café. There’s a no-smoking policy, but no one quite has the balls to ask Luci to stop. They’re getting a lot of half-curious, half-frightened looks. Luci doesn’t seem to care – or maybe just takes it as her due. Who knows.</p><p>Laura watches the smoke curl upwards from Luci’s cigarette, before transferring her gaze to Luci’s face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	don’t tell us our youth is running out (it’s only just begun)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [allofthefandoms](https://archiveofourown.org/users/allofthefandoms/gifts).



> _Dear Yuletide Recipient,_
> 
> _I hope you like this fic. It doesn't really match anything in your letter, but I think it fulfills your optional details okay? This is a hard fandom to write, but an awesome one. I had fun writing this, so I hope you have fun reading it._

**don’t tell us our youth is running out (it’s only just begun)**

They’re sitting in a café. There’s a no-smoking policy, but no one quite has the balls to ask Luci to stop. They’re getting a lot of half-curious, half-frightened looks. Luci doesn’t seem to care – or maybe just takes it as her due. Who knows.

Laura watches the smoke curl upwards from Luci’s cigarette, before transferring her gaze to Luci’s face.

After they left the prison – Luci raining fire and brimstone down on anyone who tried to stop her – Laura followed Luci. Luci didn’t try to stop her, or do more than send Laura a look when Laura sat down at the opposite side of the table.

Luci lets out another breath full of smoke, and taps her cigarette against the tabletop. Little ashy bits scatter onto the plastic surface. Luci’s irises are still a bright, dangerous red.

“It’s all such bullshit,” says Luci finally.

“That’s what I said,” Laura says.

Luci sends her a scathing look that speaks of disbelief.

“I _did!_ ”

“What are you still doing here, anyway?” Luci asks. “You were only in it for the power. I’ve told you I can’t give you anything. I can’t create demons. There are no demons. There’s just me.”

“That wasn’t my only reason,” Laura says. “Anyway…” A long-forgotten piece of religious lore drifts back to her. Laura never paid much attention to her grandmother’s religious beliefs, but a few things stuck in her memory. “I’m pretty sure the demons created themselves, when they followed Lucifer. In religion, I mean.”

Laura shifts in her seat, feeling uncomfortable, without quite knowing why. The long look Luci gives her, considering and just this side of calculating, doesn’t help.

“What do you want, Laura?” Luci asks softly. Just straight-out asks: no messing around, no playing at temptation or word games. She sounds tired all of a sudden, and Laura remembers that Luci’s just found out that she’s been abandoned by the people who were supposed to be on her side. Her brethren.

Laura thinks of the story of Lucifer’s fall from grace. The current situation has a certain uncanny resonance.

So Laura is honest in return, because she can give Luci that much.

“I want to be like you,” she says.

“I can’t give you that,” says Luci. “I said that already, I–”

“I know,” says Laura, cutting Luci off. She believes her. If Laura’s going to _become_ anything, she’s going to have to do it herself. Isn’t that always how it works, in the stories? If you want to make something of yourself, it’s you who has to do the remaking. “You can’t give me that. I believe you. But if I can’t have that – if I have to do it myself – then knowing you is the next best thing.”

Words come flowing out of Laura, naturally and articulately.

“You… you’re more than just one person,” she says, knowing that it’s true even as she says it. “You’re inspiring, and just knowing you is helping me to change already. I don’t know if it’s a good change or a bad one, but it’s change. It’s like you said, you get the chance to change us – that’s the whole point of coming down into the world, right? To change things. To change _people_. I’m changing, just from being around you. You don’t need to do anything besides be yourself. The rest of it I’m already doing, by myself.”

Luci stares at her, and Luci’s expression is strangely small and vulnerable, just for a moment, before it changes, triumph blooming across her face.

“Well,” Luci says softly, but Laura hears every word. “Finally, someone who _gets it_.” She throws her head back and laughs. Laura loves the sound. When Luci looks back at Laura, her eyes are blue and bright.

She smiles, and Laura tentatively smiles back.

“Just – one question,” Laura says, and Luci looks at her attentively, tilting her head to one side slightly. “Are you really Lucifer? The Devil?”

Luci closes her eyes for a second, and something dark and painful crosses her face. She opens her eyes.

“ _Yes_ ,” she says, and there’s a wealth of feeling in her voice that should send Laura running.

(It doesn’t.)

“They don’t remember, the others,” says Luci, and Laura knows that she means the other gods. “Oh, they have the knowledge, the certainty of who they are, thanks to Ananke – but they don’t _remember_.” Luci takes a drag of her cigarette, breathes out smoke. The acrid smell is unpleasant, but Laura doesn’t care. “I don’t remember all of it – human brains aren’t designed to hold eternity, you see – but I remember _enough_.”

Luci scowls, her eyes narrowed.

“For all that they think they’re special, different, they’re just like everyone else, really. Petty. Concerned with maintaining the status quo. They talk of divine inspiration and changing the world, but they’re too afraid to even change their own lives. The whole _point_ of this is to remake the world, and you can’t do that without tearing the old one down. _Life_ is change. Without change, all that’s left is _death._ They think that they’re prolonging their lives here by continuing the cycle, but in reality they’re dying slowly, one reincarnation at a time. It’s pathetic. I’d pity them, if they weren’t determined to sentence me to the same fate. So fuck them,” says Luci, “their rules, their unchanging _order._ I’ll shake up the world, and it doesn’t matter what they think. I’m already damned. Long ago.”

Luci frowns fiercely, and takes an angry drag of her cigarette, before expelling smoke in an angry huff of breath. Her fingers tap against the tabletop. Other customers avoid their table.

“But won’t they try to stop you?” Laura asks. “If you try to shake things up?”

Luci smiles, sharp and gleeful and wicked, and it probably says terrible things about Laura, how much she revels in that expression.

“Someone usually tries,” Luci says. “Bigger gods than them, usually. Gods, humans; it doesn’t matter. They’re all the same.”

“It matters to me,” says Laura, meaning it. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Luci’s expression softens infinitesimally.

“Hurt? Me? Don’t make me laugh,” she says. “You should worry more about yourself, because I’m certainly not going to.”

“I know,” says Laura, because it’s clear, at this point, that Luci only looks out for herself. Strangely, it’s part of her charm. Laura wishes that she could be more like Luci, that way.

(In _any_ way. Laura might be a little bit in love. Just a little.)

The sound of sirens is distant, but growing louder, and Luci sighs.

“So much for getting a coffee before the cops arrive,” she says loudly, and the girl behind the counter looks nervous. Luci stands, pushing her chair back, and grins at Laura. It’s a fierce, bloodthirsty grin, and Laura can’t help but grin back, even as she wonders what Luci’s up to now. “I suppose you want to avoid being arrested yourself, don’t you.”

“It’s probably too late for that,” says Laura. She left the prison with Luci after all, and never made an attempt to stop her. Guilt by association, or something.

“Well, then,” says Luci, still with the bloodthirsty grin. “How do you feel about making things worse?”

She holds out her hand.

For a moment, everything is suspended in that moment: the future that Laura’s parents want for her, vs. the one that Laura can see beckoning in front of her. Laura probably won’t last long, but it’ll be a hell of a ride.

The gods trade their lives for something wonderful and world-changing. Laura doesn’t see why she can’t do the same.

She takes Luci’s hand.

Luci’s smile is brilliant.

“Come on,” she says, as the sirens grow nearly deafening. “Let’s go face the music.”

And when Luci leaves the café, Laura follows.

 


End file.
